Chapter 146: Prosperous Business, Rising Ji Family

When Wang Chao began to settle down and handle official business, some special supernatural phenomena began to occur in many places in the territory of the People's Salvation Army.

As mentioned before, the energy of the People's Salvation Army territory is much higher than other places because of the spiritual power and national destiny.

Even before, it was twice as much as other places.

The result is that the spiritual power of those dead lives can last longer.

Even if their bodies are not destroyed, these spiritual powers will be attached to their bodies and preserved for one or two months.

Because Wang Chao cannot collect souls from a distance, and the spiritual power generated by all living beings is enough.

Therefore, Wang Chao did not pay too much attention to the souls of these dead people before.

After all, he could not run around the territory to collect souls.

Therefore, he really didn't know that there was spiritual power in these corpses.

After all, the spiritual power today cannot spread to life and matter, unless Wang Chao personally does it, such as giving heavenly status and magical powers.

As for those dead people he encountered, he would collect their souls immediately.

Naturally, he didn't know that these souls would not completely disappear for a long time afterwards.

Of course, their consciousness before death had already dissipated.

What was left was just a group of spiritual power aggregates with some memories of their previous lives.

If things continued to develop normally, after a month or two, these remaining spiritual powers would also dissipate between heaven and earth.

Or they would escape from the body and be eroded and assimilated by spiritual power.

However, just at this time, heaven and earth were promoted, not only the energy was instantly ten times denser, but even the spiritual power could exist for a long time.

Even if they were directly exposed between heaven and earth, they could exist for four or five days, and these spiritual power aggregates, if exposed between heaven and earth, could probably exist for one or two months.

And because the energy in the territory of the Salvation Army was three times denser than other places, even if this time could not be extended by three times, it could still be supported for two or three months, or even three or four months.

Even if they encounter special circumstances, they may really exist for a long time.

Ten miles outside Yumen Pass, there is a huge burial pit.

That was the place where Wang Dahu and his men buried tens of thousands of enemy soldiers.

It has been more than 20 days since then, and they have been completely buried underground, but when you get close, you can still smell some faint blood.

And about one or two miles away from this burial ground, there is a road leading directly to Yumen Pass.

A convoy of more than 30 people came slowly from the west.

They are a caravan from the Western Regions.

The Salvation Army and Turpan are at odds, but they do not prohibit merchants from there from entering the pass, but they need to pay entry taxes according to the goods.

In addition, they are not allowed to sell salt, iron, grain and other materials to the outside world.

Thanks to the Salvation Army not prohibiting internal and external exchanges, commercial trade between the two sides, this has made the East-West trade, which had been gradually cut off with the closure of Jiayu Pass, gradually flourish again.

After the Salvation Army occupied Jiayuguan and reopened it, many merchants were ready to move.

After Wang Dahu captured Yumenguan, Chijin Mongolian Guard and other places, some merchants began to try to contact the Salvation Army and wanted to trade with the people of Yumenguan.

In this regard, as long as they paid the corresponding entry tax, the Salvation Army would not care about them.

Although the commercial tax was a bit high, many items in the Central Plains could be sold at high prices in Turpan, and further west in Yarkand, Kazakhstan, and even in the Western Regions.

And if the Western Region items were scarce in the Central Plains, they could also be sold at high prices to the people who migrated to Yumenguan, or even in the Central Plains.

Therefore, although the entry tax collected by the Salvation Army was a bit higher, it was not unacceptable.

What's more, the commercial tax of the Salvation Army was not like that of other national forces, which might need to be paid again every time they arrived at a place.

In the territory of the Salvation Army, as long as the commercial tax is paid reasonably and legally and the corresponding bills are issued, they can move freely in the entire territory without being charged any other fees.

If they only trade at the border, their income will naturally be less.

However, if they are willing to go a little further and enter Jiayu Pass, the income they can get will rise sharply.

Therefore, although at the beginning, those merchants from the west only tried to trade at Yumen Pass.

However, as time went by, and because the Salvation Army only collected tariffs once, some merchants began to try to cross Yumen Pass and enter Jiayu Pass after obtaining the consent of the Salvation Army.

The novel goods from the Western Regions and other countries were quickly dumped by them at higher prices.

In fact, if the Salvation Army’s territory had not had a certain commodity price limit, and tariffs were also related to commodity profits, they could even sell some items at sky-high prices.

Commodity price limits and high tariffs were naturally proposed and implemented by the dynasty.

Firstly, it can ensure that most people can buy it, and secondly, he does not want foreign merchants to make a lot of money in the territory of the Salvation Army.

As for outside the territory, the dynasty does not care. If you can sell an ordinary porcelain bowl for hundreds of taels of silver, it is your own ability.

However, even with the price limit on goods, they can earn far more money than at the border.

At the border, they may only be able to sell goods worth a few hundred coins, but within Jiayuguan, or even in places like Gongchang and Lintao Prefecture, they may be able to double the price, or even sell for several taels of silver.

Moreover, they can also buy porcelain, silk, etc. from the Central Plains at a cheaper price in the inland.

Once these goods are shipped to the countries in the Western Regions, the profit will be at least ten times.

In addition, the Western Regions have gradually cut off their exchanges with the Ming Dynasty, and the prices of these goods will inevitably be higher.

After the first merchant to eat crabs made a high profit.

More and more merchants began to cross Yumenguan and Jiayuguan to enter the inland.

Especially in Gongchang and Lintao Prefecture, which were first occupied by the Salvation Army, after more than a year of development, earth-shaking changes have already taken place.

Not only does every family have surplus food, but also a lot of spare money from selling grain.

In this way, their consumption desire naturally increased greatly, and they could buy slightly more expensive items after some hesitation.

Therefore, the business here began to develop rapidly, even though a large number of wealthy merchants were cleared out at the beginning.

However, as the people became richer and had no worries about food and drink, more and more people gradually did some small business in their spare time.

Over time, the business in the two places prospered rapidly, and many people who seized the opportunity gradually developed into new big merchants.

Of course, because of the deterrence of the Salvation Army, these merchants were very honest in the territory of the Salvation Army.

They dared not pay less business taxes and did not dare to do anything illegal.

At least within three to five years, without the temptation of huge interests, they dared not break the law under the deterrence of the Salvation Army clearing out countless wealthy merchants.

Especially with the entry of Western merchants, the trade between the two places became more prosperous.

There are many people who have earned a lot of money.

If the land in the territory of the Salvation Army was not state-owned and could not be sold privately, there would be many more big landlords in the territory of the Salvation Army.

And if the most outstanding among these merchants is the Ji family in Lintao Prefecture.

Because the Ji family is a wealthy merchant family that has been passed down for generations, and because they have not been a family of great kindness, they have not done any great evil.

Therefore, they did not confiscate their property and liquidate them when they cleaned up the dignitaries and wealthy merchants before, but just forcibly bought a large amount of their land at the market price, leaving only their ancestral homes and the industrial houses in Lintao Prefecture.

Therefore, after confirming that the Salvation Army would not attack them again and seeing the business prospects of the Salvation Army territory, they immediately took advantage of the commercial blank time of the Salvation Army territory to seize the market.

It has become a huge business empire spanning the entire territory of the Salvation Army, and even extending to the Ming Dynasty and the Western Regions.

In just the past year, they contributed nearly five million taels of tax silver to the Salvation Army.

This is simply incredible.

Nowadays, except for the Salvation Army and government officials, who would meet the head of the Ji family, the old head of the Ji family, would be respectful and polite?

However, at this time, Ji Mingyuan, a member of the Ji family, was in a state of uneasiness.

It was because there was too much money.

Sometimes too much money is hot.

If their family assets were favored by the Salvation Army, their end would probably not be too good.

As for the Salvation Army being very law-abiding

He laughed, that was because the benefits were not enough. If there were benefits that could not be refused, he believed that their Ji family would be wiped out in one day.

As for leaving the Salvation Army territory.

The reason why their family was able to develop so quickly was due to the strength of the Salvation Army and the relaxed business environment.

Here, as long as they paid taxes, they could move freely in the territory.

Even outside the territory, they had the identity of the people of the Salvation Army territory. They could not guarantee it in places too far away, but Yang He and the righteous army in Shaanxi would give them some face.

In Turpan in the west, they were not treated as honored guests, but they were also warmly entertained.

Such a business tycoon in the territory of the Salvation Army, in their opinion, must have some connection with the top leaders of the Salvation Army.

Once they offended them, wouldn't the Ji family instigate the Salvation Army to attack them? They naturally had to be careful and warmly entertained.

In fact, his Ji family really had no great relationship with the Salvation Army.

Today's officials and generals at all levels in the Salvation Army are still very honest.

Especially for these wealthy businessmen who had been cleared out before, they had an instinctive rejection and alienation, for fear of causing displeasure to the dynasty.

Although the dynasty has stated that businessmen have their own significance, many officials and generals are still reluctant to have too deep entanglements with them.

The bigger the business, the more alienated they are.

The only one who has a deep connection with these wealthy businessmen is probably the newly established tax bureau.

In fact, the reason why the Ji family's business was able to grow so big, in addition to Ji Mingyuan's excellent business acumen, was that they seized the time when the business in the territory of the Salvation Army was blank, and thus developed at an extraordinary speed.

But people outside didn't know all this?

In their opinion, the Ji family can become the first wealthy merchant in the territory of the Salvation Army, which must be related to the top leaders of the Salvation Army.

So when facing the Ji family, they often treat them with courtesy.

Once the Ji family leaves the territory of the Salvation Army, the protection brought by this misunderstanding will disappear in an instant.

And the trade between the East and the West will also be cut off.

Moreover, look at what the outside world is like now. In the east of Shaanxi, there are rebels everywhere. Needless to say, in the west and the north, the various khanates and tribes are constantly fighting each other.

In the northeast, the Later Jin Dynasty is rising, constantly attacking and looting the border, and there are also Japanese pirates harassing the eastern coast.